A Concise Summary of AC Circuits

Aditya Joshi
November 11, 2005
Abstract
This article is meant to cover the basics of calculations of AC circuits. We start with Impedance as
a complex number. At that point we shall make a quick digression into some techniques of handling
complex numbers. The reader should note that what we present here is a minute fraction of the full
capabilities of complex algebra. We then try to connect the calculation of quantities in AC circuits to
familiar rules from DC circuits such as Kirchhos Rules and Ohms Law and see when the latter is valid
and when it is not.
Disclaimer: This document is purely for self-edication. It is not meant as a formula sheet for
an exam, nor is it meant to be self-contained (although I have tried to make it so) or for that
matter, complete. I have tried my best to make sure that no conceptual errors reside herein. Ty-
pos are a dierent matter altogether...(I bet this disclaimer is really starting to get on your nerves :)
Contents
1 Anatomy of an AC circuit 3
2 Why complex numbers? 3
2.1 The standard form . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
2.2 Visualizing complex numbers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
2.3 Complex conjugate: z

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
2.4 The magnitude (or modulus) of a complex number: |z| . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
2.5 The argument (or phase) of a complex number: arg(z) = . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
3 Analyzing an AC circuit - standard procedure 5
4 What about each circuit element? 6
1
5 Phase dierences for resistors, capacitors and inductors 7
5.1 Resistors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
5.2 Inductors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
5.3 Capacitors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
6 RMS values of voltage and current 10
6.1 Motivation and calculation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
6.2 The reward . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
7 Calculating average power dissipated in AC circuits 10
8 Resonant circuits 12
8.1 Series RLC circuit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
Total Impedance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
Phase dierence between total current and total input EMF . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
The total current . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
Other examples of resonance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
2
1 Anatomy of an AC circuit
Figure 1: A generic AC circuit (The circle with a in it is the EMF)
AC stands for alternating current. An AC circuit is any circuit that has currents and voltages that are
periodically varying in time (see g. 1). An AC circuit usually has at least one voltage source (or EMF: E(t))
that can be assumed to vary in time as:
E(t) = E
0
cos t
Further, there may be other devices such as resistors, capacitors and inductors arranged in various ways in
the circuit. These are called circuit elements. In a DC resistive circuit, a resistor controls the amount of
current that can ow in the circuit at steady state. This relationship is expressed by Ohms Law:
V
across resistor
= I
through resistor
R (1)
In an AC circuit, however, things are much more interesting. AC circuit elements do not merely control
the amount of current owing in the circuit, they also control the precise time-dependence of the current.
The quantity analogous to resistance in an AC circuit that encodes all this information about the current-
voltage relationship is know as Impedance and denoted by the letter Z. Inevitably, some jargon has been
spawned in this eld. The impedance of a capacitor or an inductor is collectively known as Reactance and
individually known as capacitive reactance and inductive reactance. The impedance of a resistor is known
simply as resistance.
2 Why complex numbers?
Since the impedance controls the amount as well as time-dependance of the current in the circuit, it cannot
be adequately represented by a single number (there are 2 pieces of information). The rst thing you might
think of using is a 2 dimensional vector. This is done sometimes and the resulting representation is called
a phasor. However, this can get tedious at times. Instead, we may use a mathematical object known as a
complex number.
3
2.1 The standard form
A complex number (z) is not too dierent from a vector. It has 2 parts to it, a real part and an imaginary
part. This last name is unfortunate as it fosters the belief that this is mere fantasy. Try not to fall prey to
this tendency. The 2 parts are independent. A general complex number is written as:
z = x + iy (2)
where, i is the square root of -1. So, i
2
= 1. The real and imaginary parts are denoted as follows:
Re(z) = (z) = x
Im(z) = (z) = y
2.2 Visualizing complex numbers
Figure 2: The Complex (or Argand) plane.
A complex number may be visualized as point in a 2-dimensional plane called the Complex plane (or the
Argand plane, after its inventor). This is a plane with 2 axes, the usual X-axis is now called the Real axis
and the usual Y-axis is called the Imaginary axis. You can now see why we said that complex numbers
are not unlike 2D vectors (see g. 2).
2.3 Complex conjugate: z

The important thing to remember when working with complex expressions is that you can take a very
complicated expression and reduce it to to the standard form given in eq. 2 with just 1 real part and 1
imaginary part. This is done by using a very useful quantity - the complex conjugate of a complex
number (sort of like its evil twin). This is denoted as z

and is found very simply by replacing all occurences

= x iy (3)
4
2.4 The magnitude (or modulus) of a complex number: |z|
The magnitude of z is just its distance from (0, 0) in the complex plane. The usual Pythagorean theorem
applies. But, we note that this is equivalent to multiplying z by its complex conjugate:
|z| =
_
x
2
+ y
2
|z| =
_
([z])
2
+ ([z])
2
|z| =
_
([z])
2
+ ([z])
2
(4)

z z

=
_
(x + iy)(x iy)
=
_
x
2
+ iyx ixy i
2
y
2
=
_
x
2
+ y
2
(as i
2
= 1)
= |z| (5)
2.5 The argument (or phase) of a complex number: arg(z) =
This is just the angle that z makes with the positive X-axis (measured counterclockwise). Again, see g. 2.
Simple trigonometry then gives:
arg(z) = = arctan(
y
x
) = arctan(
[z]
[z]
) (6)
The gure then clearly implies:
arg(z

) = = arctan(
y
x
) = arctan(
[z

]
[z

]
) (7)
3 Analyzing an AC circuit - standard procedure
We are given an AC circuit with one or more circuit elements with impedances z
1
, z
2
, . . . that may be
arranged in some fashion and an EMF that is oscillating in time with angular frequency . We can then
solve for the total current put out by the source as follows:
1. Assume a form for the EMF. i.e. Let the EMF be:
E(t) = E
0
cos t (8)
2. Then the current can always be expressed as:
I(t) = I
0
cos(t ) (9)
where, I
0
is the peak current and is the phase dierence between the voltage and the current. The
phase of an oscillating function is just the argument of that function (e.g: the phase of E(t) is just (t)
and the phase of I(t) is (t )). So, you can see why is called the phase dierence.
5
3. Find the total impedance of the circuit. Add up all the impedances just as if they were resistors (i.e.
using the rules for addition of resistors in series or parallel). See table 1 for a list of impedances for
common circuit elements. Note the very important distinction here that the impedances are complex
numbers so that your total impedance so calculated will be a complex number. Simplify this complex
number and get it into standard form:
Z
total
= [Z
total
] + i [Z
total
] (10)
4. The peak current is then given by:
I
0
=
E
0
|Z
total
|
(11)
where, |Z
total
| is the magnitude of the complex impedance (calculated as in eq. 4 or eq. 5).
|Z
total
| =
_
([Z
total
])
2
+ ([Z
total
])
2
(12)
5. The phase dierence is given by:
= arctan(
[Z
total
]
[Z
total
]
) (13)
This provides us with a full description of the total instantaneous current (i.e. the current at any instant
of time) supplied by the source EMF. We have thus formally solved the general problem of any AC circuit
with one source EMF and any number and type of circuit elements.
Circuit element Symbol Impedance nature Name
1)Resistor R R pure real resistance
2)Capacitor C Z
C
=
i
C
pure imaginary capacitive reactance
3)Inductor L Z
L
= i L pure imaginary inductive reactance
Table 1: Common circuit elements and their impedances
4 What about each circuit element?
We can use the procedure from the previous section to nd the current-voltage relationship for any individual
circuit element, if we just recognize the following very important fact:
The phase dierence is a relative quantity and does not depend on the exact form of the voltage or
current (as long as they are sinusoidal). In particular, it does not matter if the voltage is a cosine function
or a sine function because any sinusoidal function is the same (just displaced backward or forward) in time.
So, we can safely assume any function for the voltage and gure out what the current function must be
relative to the voltage.
6
Then, the voltage in section. 3 would refer to the voltage on the circuit element of interest (and not the
whole circuit). Similarly, the total impedance should be replaced by the impedance of just that element and
we would get the instantaneous current passing through that element as our nal answer.
Section 3 is therefore just an extension of Ohms Law to AC circuits.
5 Phase dierences for resistors, capacitors and inductors
We apply the above method to individual resistors, capacitors and inductors to nd the relationship between
voltage and current across them.
Figure 3: The tangent function (note the places where it goes to innity)
5.1 Resistors
The impedance is just the usual resistance (R). Let the voltage across the resistor be given by the cosine
function. Then the phase dierence of the current is given by eq. 13:
= arctan(
[Z]
[Z]
) = arctan(
0
R
) = 0 (14)
V (t) = V
0
cos(t) (15)
I(t) = I
0
cos(t) (16)
So, the voltage and current across a resistor are in phase (share the same time-dependence) and Ohms Law
is still good for resistors (individually) in AC circuits. See g. 4.
7
Figure 4: Voltage and current across a resistor. NOTE: Here and elsewhere, all graphs are plotted
vs. t which is just an angle.
5.2 Inductors
The impedance is the inductive reactance (see Table. 1) given by:
Z
L
= 0 + iL
Let the voltage across the inductor be given by the cosine function. Then the phase dierence of the current
is given by eq. 13:
= arctan(
L
0
) = arctan(+) = +

2
(see fig. 3) (17)
The voltage and the current are then given by:
V (t) = V
0
cos(t) (18)
I(t) = I
0
cos(t

2
) (19)
The Voltage leads the current in time (i.e. peaks in time before the current). See g. 5.
5.3 Capacitors
The impedance is the capacitive reactance (see Table. 1) given by:
Z
C
= 0
i
C
Let the voltage across the capacitor be given by the cosine function. Then the phase dierence of the current
is given by eq. 13:
= arctan(

1
C
0
) = arctan() =

2
(see fig. 3) (20)
8
Figure 5: Voltage and current across an inductor.
The voltage and the current are then given by:
V (t) = V
0
cos(t) (21)
I(t) = I
0
cos(t +

2
) (22)
Figure 6: Voltage and current across a capacitor.
The Voltage lags the current in time (i.e. peaks in time after the current). See g. 6.
9
6 RMS values of voltage and current
6.1 Motivation and calculation
We wish to nd a value of the voltage or current that best represents the average of those quantities.
Unfortunately, the usual average (summing and dividing by the number of points) will give exactly zero over
a complete cycle (over an angle of 2) as the cosine and sine functions are just as much positive as negative
over a cycle and hence cancel out during the averaging process.
We do the next best thing then: nd the Root Mean Square value of the AC quantities. As the name
implies, we nd the square-root of the mean of the square of the voltage (or current). For this, we recall
the average of of the function (cos(t))
2
over a full cycle, from the nal section of Vol. II of A Review of
Newtonian Physics:

(cos(t))
2
_
=
1
2
(23)
So,
V
rms
=
_
(V
0
cos(t))
2
=
V
0

2
(24)
And,
I
rms
=
_
(I
0
cos(t ))
2
=
I
0

2
(25)
Note that the extra phase does not change the rms value of the current. You may go through the derivation
in the review to convince yourself of this if you wish.
6.2 The reward
After all that hard work in nding the RMS quantities, we now state the signicance of these.
Ohms Law is valid once more as long as we use RMS quantities V
rms
and I
rms
instead of V and I and use
|Z| instead of R for any component we wish to analyze.
V
rms
= I
rms
|Z| (26)
7 Calculating average power dissipated in AC circuits
Suppose the voltage on a particular component and the current through that component are given by:
V (t) = V
0
cos(t)
I(t) = I
0
cos(t )
10
Then, instantaneous power (as it always dened) is:
P(t) = V (t) I(t) = V
0
I
0
cos(t) cos(t ) (27)
We can nd the average of the power over a complete cycle (say, from t = 0 to t =
2

). Note that both

_
t=0
P(t)dt
2

_
t=0
dt
=
2
_
=0
V
0
I
0
cos() cos( )d
[]
2
0
=
V
0
I
0
2
2
_
=0
cos() cos( )d (28)
To perform the integral in the last step, we note that:
cos Acos B =
1
2
(cos(A + B) + cos(AB)) (29)
Using this in eq. 28, we obtain:
P
avg
=
V
0
I
0
2
1
2
2
_
=0
(cos([] + [ ]) + cos([] [ ]))d
=
V
0
I
0
2
1
2
_
_
2
_
=0
(cos(2 )d +
2
_
=0
cos d
_
_
=
V
0
I
0
2
1
2
_
[
sin(2 )
2
]
2
0
+ cos()[]
2
0
_
=
V
0
I
0
2
1
2
_
_
1
2
[sin(4 ) sin(0 )
. .
these terms cancel
] + cos()[2]
_
_
=
V
0
I
0
2
cos
=
V
0

2
I
0

2
cos
So, P
avg
= V
rms
I
rms
cos
So, P
avg
= V
rms
I
rms
cos (30)
The factor of cos is known as the power factor. As the voltage and current go int or out of phase with
each other, the power dissipated increases or decreases. We can see that the maximum power dissipated (on
average) will be when the power factor is 1 (i.e. = 0). The phase angle is zero when the total reactance
is zero (either a purely resistive circuit or a resonant circuit, where the inductive and capacitive reactances
cancel each other out). Lets list the power dissipated for the three circuit elements (taken individually).
11
P
avg
(resistor) = V
rms
I
rms
cos(0) = V
rms
I
rms
(31)
P
avg
(inductor) = V
rms
I
rms
cos(

2
) = 0 (32)
P
avg
(capacitor) = V
rms
I
rms
cos(

2
) = 0 (33)
So, no power is dissipated on average in inductors or capacitors (they are conservative systems - energy
borrowed from the source EMF in one half of the cycle is promptly returned with no losses in the next half
of the cycle). The resistor is the only one that actually uses up energy. Note that the total power dissipated
does depend on the total phase angle of the circuit, which in turn depends on the inductive and capacitive
elements.
8 Resonant circuits
Resonance is a very important concept in physics (and elsewhere). This is such a universal phenomenon
that it may be found in a wide variety of circumstances and a general name for systems that exhibit it is a
forced harmonic oscillator, i.e. an analog of a mass-on-a-spring which is driven by an external force that is
(usually ) periodic in nature.
A resonant circuit is one in which there is a special frequency at which the circuit may be driven so that
the current response of the circuit is maximum (i.e. the total impedance is at a minimum). The special
frequency is then called the resonant frequency.
You have already seen a Series RLC resonant circuit wherein, (as the name implies) a resistor, an inductor
and a capacitor are connected in series with a sinusoidal EMF. I will just quote the results here:
8.1 Series RLC circuit
Total Impedance
Using table. 1, we get the total (complex) impedance of the series circuit by just adding all the complex
impedances together (as we would for ordinary resistors). This gives:
Z
total
= R + iL +
_
i
C
_
= R + i
_
L
1
C
_
(34)
The magnitude of a complex number is given by eq. 4:
|Z
total
| =

R
2
+
_
L
1
C
_
2
(35)
12
Phase dierence between total current and total input EMF
= arctan
_
L
1
C
R
_
(36)
The total current
From eq. 9, we have:
I(t) = I
0
cos(t ) (37)
where, is given above and where I
0
is given by eq. 11 as:
I
0
=
E
0
|Z
total
|
=
E
0
_
R
2
+
_
L
1
C
_
2
(38)
Imagine that the only quantity you may vary is the input frequency, then it should be clear that the peak
current (I
0
) will be maximized when |Z
total
| is minimized. Since R is a constant, choosing a special frequency
(say,
0
) such that (
0
L
1
0C
) becomes 0 should do the trick. Solving this condition for
0
yields:

0
=
_
1
LC
(39)
which is the resonant frequency for this circuit. Notice that this makes the peak current look very simple
indeed.
The peak currrent (at resonance) is then just: I
0
=
E0

R
2
+0
=
E0
R
which is a maximum compared to the peak
current at all other frequencies.
The phase dierence between the source EMF and response current is then (from eq. 36) just equal to 0!!
So, at resonance, the total current and voltage are in phase for this particular circuit. See g. 7 for a plot of
the peak current vs. the input frequency. This was shown in lecture as an actual experimental (real-time)
plot. I hope you didnt miss that (it was really pretty).
Other examples of resonance
Such a circuit is in every receiver (radio, microwave or otherwise) that intercepts Electromagnetic Waves and
decodes information from them (like radios, celphones, wireless receivers, TV etc.) When you tune a radio
or TV to dierent stations, what you are doing is changing the value of L or C (usually C) with a knob until
the resonant frequency of the circuit is something dierent (and corresponds to the frequency assigned by
the FCC to a dierent station, for ex. FM 90.3). The circuit will then respond maximally to that frequency
while (comparatively) ignoring other frequencies. This is why you can pick out a single station from the
immense sea of electromagnetic waves bueting us from all sides.
Resonance is also why small stimuli may sometimes lead to huge consequences. For example, the collapse of
a section of the Nimitz Freeway near San Francisco during the 1989 World Series was caused by the seismic
waves from a magnitude 7.1 earthquake 100km away, which just happened to have the same frequency of
13
oscillation as the resonant frequency of the freeway section. This was remarkable (not to mention tragic), as
the rest of the freeway was left relatively unharmed.
If you walk at a particular frequency, the stimulus to your coee mug full or steaming liquid may be just
right to resonate with the natural frequency of the uid motion (sloshing back and forth) to make huge
oscillations that make the coee leap out of the mug.
You have to provide a push to a friend on a swing at just the right frequency to make the swing perform
with the greatest amplitude. Being on or o-resonance could be the dierence between your friend enjoying
a nice swing and you getting hit where it hurts (ouch!).
There are literally thousands of examples in daily life that illustrate resonance.
Figure 7: Resonance curve for a Series RLC circuit (Peak current vs. input frequency)
14